Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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If I may, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, UNCLOS, allows for all vessels, including military vessels, to transit through the territorial waters of coastal states when conducting innocent passage, as defined by Article 19 of UNCLOS. Therefore, any vessels transiting Irish waters must do so in compliance with international law. They may be subject to sighting and observation by the Defence Forces without their innocent passage being infringed. Then the Department of Defence and the Defence Forces will continue to engage with the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications on the protection of Ireland's offshore energy infrastructure and data cables. What tends to happen then, if a particular ship of interest is passing through, is that member states will talk to one another and it will be tracked by a number of interested parties. Sometimes when the crew becomes aware that the ship is being tracked, it exits or carries on to a different destination. You will read about this every now and again in the newspapers, but it is an ongoing phenomenon of observation, counter-observation and movement. Sometimes it may be with a view to ascertaining, in the case of the particular ship or submarine coming in, how much the crew can get away with it without being detected or observed.

Our Naval Service fisheries monitoring centre in Haulbowline continues to remotely monitor vessels in the Irish exclusive economic zone 24-7. That capacity exists. Then we have particular focus between air and naval platforms in respect of offshore assets and energy infrastructure.